Al Jazeera investigation finds inflated view counts for Israeli counter-documentary

An Al Jazeera investigation has identified major discrepancies between the view count displayed on the website for an Israeli counter-documentary to NAZA and the actual online traffic the film received. The site nazadocumentary.com listed more than 43 million views on October 14, while the film’s official YouTube upload had not surpassed 130 000 views and the channel had fewer than 2 000 subscribers.

Independent traffic analysis tools reported far lower visitation figures: Semrush estimated about 500 000 total visits to the site by early October, and Similarweb recorded only 326 visits for September. The domains associated with the counter-film were also absent from the Tranco list of the world’s one-million most visited sites.

Technical analysis of the site’s source code showed that the large number was generated internally and presented as a live counter, starting at 97 percent of the final value and counting up over three seconds. The code also sent a “watch-tracker” file after roughly 25 seconds of video playback, but the method used to calculate the displayed figure was not disclosed.

The counter-film, a 49-minute video produced by Ariel Averbuch, Roy Danino and Hagai Gutman, was promoted by Israeli diplomatic accounts, including a post by the Israeli Embassy in Washington on October 3. Tzipi Hotovely, head of Israel’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate, awarded the creators certificates of recognition, stating that the film had attracted tens of millions of views.

"The film has garnered tens of millions of views," Hotovely said, referring to the inflated website figure.

The investigation highlights the use of fabricated metrics to bolster the film’s perceived reach amid ongoing political controversy surrounding the original documentary NAZA, which alleges the use of AI-driven targeting systems by the Israeli military in Gaza.